We meet all-girl punk band Glam Skanks
Never heard of the Glam Skanks ? You will! They’re four trash-goddess American chicks; singer Ali Cat, guitarist Veronica Volume, drummer Cassie and bassist Millie. Their songs perfectly soundtrack young, LGBT lives.
They’ve just completed support dates with Adam Ant, and are touring until June 10th, showcasing a superb album – Glitter City – packed with spiky sugar-rush anthems and post-grime attitude. Like all the best classic pop, the songs are short, shockingly infectious and tabloid blatant, with clickbait titles worthy of the Sex Pistols. Screw dull, pretentious ballads – who could possibly resist Bad Bitch, Pretty Boy, Fuck Off, Miss Androgynous and Teenage Drag Queen as iconic, sonic snapshots of tasty, sexually deviant excess?
Sure, the Glam Skanks may be young, but in an era of dumb, anti-gay redneck thinking spearheaded by Trump, they know it’s crucially important to uphold uncompromising, diverse values. ‘What’s happening in America is so upsetting’, the girls explain. ‘We’ve always been part of the LGBT community, and the only way to prove someone like Trump wrong and stop the spread of hatred is to push alternative boundaries. So many people love David Bowie, T. Rex and other genderfluid artists. Music brings people together and has a way of knocking down intolerant borders’.
Hmmm. Maybe that was true once, back in the super-militant, politically pop-driven 1970s, but does our current era of bland, Simon Cowell-approved sounds really challenge anything? After all, even more than gay men and trannies, fiercely rocking females are a minority still treated with blanket disdain in a shockingly chauvinistic industry.
‘It shouldn’t really matter that we’re an all-girl band’ the girls continue, ‘but the real difference is that when we play, people are surprised at the entertainment value. We show up at a club and some people roll their eyes, but by the time we run through a song, everyone knows we play as well as any guy, and their vibe completely changes. The true benefit of being an all-girl rock band is that we have a platform to bring to light issues that are important to us; female empowerment, equal rights, and of course, rock and roll!
‘Our goal as a band is to inspire and empower women and young girls to understand that with hard work and determination, they can do anything they want. Women and girls are the future!’
Brava, but I hope the Glam Skanks haven’t forgotten all of us tirelessly supportive, non-judgemental and unbigoted gay, bisexual and transgender men. After all, where would Lady Gaga and Beyoncé be without our fearlessly transgressive fanbase rubber-stamping and approving their every shrewdly considered outrage? Still, frankly, both those artists are hardly cutting-edge role models, so no wonder the misfit members of Glam Skanks idolise the trashiest, most controversial pop phenomenon ever – Glam Rock!
It’s not surprising – music now is less interesting than the laziest, lobotomised wank. By contrast, the early 1970s was a non-stop tsunami of fabulously psychotic lifestyle options, spun into gloriously imaginative music worthy of a turbo-charged drag musical. Amphetamine-wasted rock ‘n’ roll animal Lou Reed eulogised tranny hookers and smack, and Bowie created killer albums of gender-fuck apocalypse you could dance to! And male makeup was everywhere, from a sub-Hammer horror Alice Cooper to an oafish, pre-paedophile Gary Glitter.
Effortlessly offensive and pre-PC, glam rock was indelibly distilled in Richard O’ Brien’s ultra-vapid Rocky Horror Show, which portrayed meaningless gender-neutral shagging as the ultimate revolutionary act!
Mercifully, Glam Skanks aren’t that dumb, and while they admire and appropriate glam-rock’s artistically provocative contempt for boundaries, their outrageousness includes humanitarian values and a sense of sexual consequences. So, don’t expect shallow, fuck-you egotism from these girls – instead, think ethical train-wreck exhibitionism, a quartet of Courtney Loves with scorching social consciences!
Live, the girls are primal voodoo pop personified, pounding out insanely catchy, bubble-gum frenzies perfectly soundtracking both the edgy glamour of chemsex queens and chilled, LGBT excess. What’s not to like? Download these crucial, 21st Century theme tunes for sexual deviants ASAP!
Glam Skanks play Camden Rocks June 6th & Nambucca June 9th.
